


Inappropriate Affection

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Affection, Carthak, Desire, Disloyalty, F/M, Forbidden Love, Gen, Understanding, challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 20:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Zaimid knows his affection for his empress is inappropriate (or the real reason Zaimid travels to the Copper Isles).





	Inappropriate Affection

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Peculiar Pairings Bingo at Goldenlake.

Inappropriate Affection

Zaimid’s workroom–a generously appointed chamber with marble floors and mahogany furniture as befit the Chief of Imperial Healers--never felt stifling unless the Empress was in it with him. A gifted healer in her own right, she often volunteered to aid him in creating his cures or joined him, veil studded with protective herbs, in tending to Thak City’s poor when disease struck their quarters. 

He didn’t remember when he had stopped being grateful of her helping hands and started admiring how smooth and perfectly sculpted they appeared. He didn’t know when being in her presence began to make it hard for him to breathe or when he had started to burn with a desire to touch her in the most forbidden fashions every time she came into close proximity with him. He just thanked the Graveyard Hag for the mercy of his eternally present assistant healers who ensured that his improprieties remained forever confined to his mind and heart. 

It was a Carthaki citizen’s duty to love his empress, but Zaimid was certain as stone that his affection for Kalasin was inappropriate. Even by gazing at her with insatiable hunger in his eyes, he was breaking faith with his emperor, his best friend from his university days who had trusted him as Chief of the Imperial Healers despite his youth and honored him with the post of head of the university’s healing wing over older, more distinguished candidates. Zaimid, who loved his country and his emperor, was committing treason every time he glanced at his empress, but he couldn’t stop looking, eyes lingering longingly over the body he knew he could never caress.

“What can I help you make today?” Kalasin cocked her head at him, hair rippling down her back like a waterfall, and Zaimid had the cheek-flaming realization that he had been silent too long. 

“I’m making insomnia remedies today.” Zaimid covered his embarrassment by pulling stacks of herbs with scents that lulled him to drowsiness like lullabies from a drawer. From beside him, he heard a clanking of glass jars as Kalasin stretched to grab them down from an overhead shelf. He placed the herbs on his worktable at the same time Kalasin did the jars. He glanced at her with the challenge he knew she loved so much shining in his eyes and added, “First person to make ten cures wins, Your Imperial Majesty.” 

“You’ll regret challenging me.” Kalasin began ripping herbs from their stems. “My hands are smaller and far defter than yours.” 

“Perhaps.” Zaimid smashed his herbs in a pestle. “My muscles are larger and stronger than yours, however, so it balances out.”

Silence fell between them–the only sound the grinding of Zaimid’s pestle–until Zaimid decided that he had to tell her of his plans to leave Carthak for the Copper Isles on the pretext of learning more healing techniques but with the true desperation of escaping his desire for his empress. “I intend to seek your husband’s permission to travel to the Copper Isles in the hope of mastering more healing tricks to use in Carthak’s service.” 

“I understand.” The look in Kalasin’s breathtaking blue eyes said she understood too well, and that was probably why Zaimid was so attracted to her like a moth to a blaze–she could interpret all the thoughts and emotions he left unspoken. “I hope you learn much in the Copper Isles if my husband grants you leave to travel there.”


End file.
